By Liz Engel Clark
LIVINGSTON – Ten shiny new T-hangars have been constructed at the Livingston Municipal Airport, but don’t try renting out these storage spaces for your airplane. They’re already sold out.
The hangars, which have bi-fold doors, water availability, plug ins and restrooms, are part of a two-pronged project that will ultimately quadruple the storage capacity at the Overton County airfield, located north of town on Airport Road. There’s already a waiting list for next year’s phase of the project, which will include the construction of 10 additional T-hangars at the site.
Johnny Halfacre, who’s chaired the airport committee since 1997, says Livingston Municipal’s been a busy place lately. The new hangars are part of a laundry list of improvements made over the last 10 years or so, including, most recently, a runway extension to 5,200-plus feet, so larger aircraft can land, a terminal remodel that affords pilots Internet access, trip planners and a full kitchen, and security upgrades that will include fencing and eight surveillance cameras.
Most all the projects were completed using federal grant money. When all the T-hangars are fully complete, he estimated its price tag at $1.5 million. Prior to the project’s undertaking, Livingston Municipal Airport, which is city owned, had just six hangars, and 14 planes were based in Overton County; eight were being stored in a maintenance hangar.
The new hangars were scheduled to be available to pilots starting May 1.
“We think by May 1, we’ll have 24 planes based here, and we think by May 1, 2013, we’ll probably have approximately 40 planes based at Livingston,” Halfacre said. “We’re growing. For a town our size, we have one of the nicest airports in the state.”
The T-hangar project did run behind schedule – about 60 days over, Halfacre said. The contractor, Freitag Construction of Crossville, will likely be hit with the overage costs associated with the delay – for the engineer that needed to remain on site while construction was ongoing – but that total was undetermined at press time. Halfacre considered the matter settled.
“They started on time (and weather delays) were part of it,” Halfacre said. “There was a lot of dirt to move and apparently, they didn’t have enough equipment and that’s where they got behind.”
And while airport officials have yet to put pen to paper in order to gauge the airport’s economic impact on the community, “We do have a list of businesses and factories that are using the airport now that weren’t 13 years ago,” Halfacre said. “We have a city industrial park and a county industrial park and we have the (Tanimura & Antle) lettuce plant out on (Highway) 111. All those factories use the airport for their business.”
The T-hangar project is expected to have a positive impact, at least, on fuel sales – both jet fuel and avgas are available. More hangars also mean more revenue for their rentals.
“We’ve got people in Livingston who have planes elsewhere. With this, they are going to bring their planes back home as soon as space is available,” he said. “They’ll be able to fly in and out of Livingston as their home base.”
http://www.ucbjournal.com/news.php?id=769
Johnny Halfacre, who’s chaired the airport committee since 1997, says Livingston Municipal’s been a busy place lately. The new hangars are part of a laundry list of improvements made over the last 10 years or so, including, most recently, a runway extension to 5,200-plus feet, so larger aircraft can land, a terminal remodel that affords pilots Internet access, trip planners and a full kitchen, and security upgrades that will include fencing and eight surveillance cameras.
Most all the projects were completed using federal grant money. When all the T-hangars are fully complete, he estimated its price tag at $1.5 million. Prior to the project’s undertaking, Livingston Municipal Airport, which is city owned, had just six hangars, and 14 planes were based in Overton County; eight were being stored in a maintenance hangar.
The new hangars were scheduled to be available to pilots starting May 1.
“We think by May 1, we’ll have 24 planes based here, and we think by May 1, 2013, we’ll probably have approximately 40 planes based at Livingston,” Halfacre said. “We’re growing. For a town our size, we have one of the nicest airports in the state.”
The T-hangar project did run behind schedule – about 60 days over, Halfacre said. The contractor, Freitag Construction of Crossville, will likely be hit with the overage costs associated with the delay – for the engineer that needed to remain on site while construction was ongoing – but that total was undetermined at press time. Halfacre considered the matter settled.
“They started on time (and weather delays) were part of it,” Halfacre said. “There was a lot of dirt to move and apparently, they didn’t have enough equipment and that’s where they got behind.”
And while airport officials have yet to put pen to paper in order to gauge the airport’s economic impact on the community, “We do have a list of businesses and factories that are using the airport now that weren’t 13 years ago,” Halfacre said. “We have a city industrial park and a county industrial park and we have the (Tanimura & Antle) lettuce plant out on (Highway) 111. All those factories use the airport for their business.”
The T-hangar project is expected to have a positive impact, at least, on fuel sales – both jet fuel and avgas are available. More hangars also mean more revenue for their rentals.
“We’ve got people in Livingston who have planes elsewhere. With this, they are going to bring their planes back home as soon as space is available,” he said. “They’ll be able to fly in and out of Livingston as their home base.”
http://www.ucbjournal.com/news.php?id=769
